New Research: Celebrities Give Terrible Nutrition Advice

Maybe seeking out an RDN (registered dietitian nutritionist) would be a better idea than relying on celebrities for guidance about what to eat and drink. A new study in the journal Pediatrics finds that “music celebrities who are popular among adolescents endorse energy-dense, nutrient-poor products.”

Marie Bragg and colleagues collected data on endorsements of food and beverages by music stars on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. They used the Nutrient Profile Index for foods and added sugar for beverages to assess nutritional quality. They used Teen Choice Award nominations as a measure of a celebrity’s popularity with adolescents. They found that 71% of the endorsed beverages were sugar-sweetened. Of the foods endorsed, 81% were energy dense and nutrient poor.

But this is just one slice of the celebrity nutrition advice pie. While these music celebrities are pushing food to adolescents with lots of calories and little nutrition, a bevy of other celebrities are selling sugar detox diets, mushroom diets, alkaline diets, and any number of food delivery schemes. Presumably they will wash away all the ill effects of the junk that music stars are selling.

Don’t even get us started on Gwyneth Paltrow. If you want good nutrition advice, connect with a good RDN.

Click here for the study in Pediatrics and here for more perspective from the Washington Post.